yay you all!
Yesterday was the first day of my "season" - DW birthday and the chocolates out at work.

I kept out of the chocolates (luckily we have a break room, so i just didn't go there). My safety net is a bag of macadamia nuts in my drawer.

Last night's dinner I allowed myself three teaspoons of her cake / ice cream and a delicious strong coffee. But that's my limit - her birthday.

Luckily, my whole life I have preferred potatoes and gravy to the cake/pie/ice cream... so I'm making a huge mashed-cauliflower for xmas dinner and i get to have as much gravy as i want...let them eat cake.

This was a great thread! I wish I would have read it last year...but I had my head buried in the sand over the holidays. This is the first year Iíve tried to stay on plan. It seems I always take an unofficial ďdietĒ vacation from mid Novemberómy birthday, until mid January, when the carbage is cleaned out and my pants are tighter. That didnít happen this year and Iím sure itís in large part due to the friends Iíve made here, the articles Iíve read, and the members here who are living examples that this can work for me too, true success stories.

Wishing you all the very best for 2019. May you reach your goals, make new friends, and live peacefully with those around you. 💕

It seems I always take an unofficial ďdietĒ vacation from mid Novemberómy birthday, until mid January, when the carbage is cleaned out and my pants are tighter. That didnít happen this year and Iím sure itís in large part due to the friends Iíve made here, the articles Iíve read, and the members here who are living examples that this can work for me too, true success stories.

I think most everybody builds a relationship over a lifetime with the pleasures and comfort of food as a release for stress and our emotional highs & lows. I believe that the bond is even stronger for us TDC types. It is a simple fact that when you want to eat something there is pleasure and release by acting on that desire. Eating carbs made me frequently hungry, even when I'd already had plenty to eat. So I would resist the urge to eat. That just added to the stress. Then I'd get sick, angry, or otherwise run out of willpower and snap... I'd be munching down something for relief. The more stressed I was the bigger the relief was when I ate something. I think that is how my binge behavior got started. Over a lifetime this behavior became deeply entrenched.

I still stress eat, but not nearly as much as I used to. And though I really try not to I still occasionally binge on OP food. It is not optimal, but that is my second line of defense. Sticking to the better foods helps keep things from getting out of hand.

What has helped me was realizing that the relief that I get from eating LC food is not the same as it was when I was downing carbs for relief. For the first 8 or 9 months of my journey snacking and grazing between meals and before bed was my norm. Some of it was stress related, especially when it was helping me deal with carb cravings. But eventually I realized that much of it was just old habits. I used the 90 day challenge to work on it. At first it was simply not eating after dinner. That was a tough one for me. I started off not eating after 9pm, then 8pm, and eventually I was able to curb most after dinner munching. Then I worked on between meal snacks. Eventually I got to where food was something that I ate at mealtime only. Doing that consistently weakened the bonds between stress and a desire to eat. I think working a full time job 5 days a week made this task easier, but it wasn't easy. It was hard work, sorry to say. It paid off though. I started eating less and the weight loss continued. Continued progress helped keep me motivated to do the work.

In "maintenance" I let some of those old habits slip back in. Not being strict with eating at mealtime only has resulted in me doing more stress eating and mindless munching. I think that is a big reason why "maintenance" may not be the proper word to describe what I've done over the past 16 months. So I am still having to work on this. I just got over being sick for over half of the month of November. I did some stress eating last month and count myself lucky that I ended the month at the same weight that I started.

All we can do is keep trying to do better. Keeping the carbs really low helps. So does that 90 day challenge. We all have things that we need to work out. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. I think that we TDCers have a tougher row to hoe. But we can do this and support from our buddies on this forum will help us find a way.

... If some nuts show up I may snag a few of those. But that is as far as I go with dipping into the holiday treats at work. My co-workers think I have willpower of steel. I don't. If I did, then I could stop after having one piece of something sweet. Staying out of it is the only game I can play if I want to win the battle of the bulge.